T.K. Kerstetter and his team at Corporate Board Member recently brought together more than 250 people in New York for the inaugural "Moving the Needle" program, which aims to deliver a big boost to the diversity of public-company boards. Among the roughly 150 director candidates gathered and introduced to corporate leaders were three Nashville-area women. They are:

• Sarah Meyerrose, who runs a finance and HR consulting firm and is president of ION, an advocacy group that also is working to get more women onto corporate boards — and which recently moved its HQ to Nashville.
• Betty Price, former vice chancellor and controller at Vanderbilt. Price also is a former audit manager at the Nashville office of KPMG.
• Paula Thomas, accounting professor at Middle Tennessee State University. Thomas also is a director of MidSouth Bank in Murfreesboro.

"Our event was just a first step in the right direction," says the Moving the Needle website. "When it comes time to fill the next open seat on your board, consider the various skill sets currently missing and the contribution that one of these 150 highly talented professionals highlighted within could make to your strategy."

SEE ALSO: 'The bar's not higher, it's in the wrong place,' a Q&A on this topic from the May issue of Nashville Post magazine